Arthur Koestler

 ( 1905 Births ) 

Arthur Koestler (, ; ; ; 5 September 1905 – 1 March 1983) was an Austria-Hungary-born author and journalist. Koestler was born in Budapest, and was educated in Austria, apart from his early school years. In 1931, Koestler joined the Communist Party of Germany but resigned in 1938 after becoming disillusioned with Stalinism.

Having moved to Britain in 1940, Koestler published his novel Darkness at Noon, an anti-totalitarian work that gained him international fame. Over the next 43 years, Koestler espoused many political causes and wrote novels, memoirs, biographies, and numerous essays. In 1949, Koestler began secretly working with a British Cold War anti-communist propaganda department known as the Information Research Department (IRD), which would republish and distribute many of his works, and also fund his activities. In 1968, he was awarded the Sonning Prize "for his outstanding contribution to European culture". In 1972, he was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE).

In 1976, Koestler was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease and in 1979 with terminal leukaemia.

 
Michael Scammell (2025). 9780394576305, Random House. ISBN 9780394576305
 In 1861, Lipót married Karolina Schon, the daughter of a prosperous timber merchant, and their son Henrik was born on 18 August 1869 in the town of [[Miskolc]] in northeastern Hungary. Henrik left school at age 16 and took a job as an errand boy with a firm of drapers. He taught himself English, German, and French, and eventually became a partner in the firm. He later set up his own business importing textiles into Hungary.Arthur Koestler, ''Arrow in the Blue'' (AIB), Collins with [[Hamish Hamilton]], 1952, p. 21.
     

In 1931, Koestler, encouraged by Eva Striker and impressed by the achievements of the Soviet Union, became a supporter of Marxism–Leninism. On 31 December 1931, he applied for membership in the Communist Party of Germany.AIB pp. 303–304. As noted in his biography, he was disappointed in the conduct of the Vossische Zeitung, "The Flagship of German Liberalism", which adapted to changing times by firing Jewish journalists, hiring writers with marked German nationalist views, and dropping its longstanding campaign against capital punishment. Koestler concluded that Liberals and moderate Democrats could not stand up against the rising Nazi tide and that the Communists were the only real counter-force.

As a result of Adolf Hitler's rise to power in January 1933, Koestler could no longer visit Germany. Koestler left the Soviet Union in 1933, and in September of that year, he returned to Paris and, for the next two years, was active in anti-fascist movements. He wrote propaganda under the direction of Willi Münzenberg, the Comintern's chief propaganda director in the West. In 1935, Koestler married Dorothy Ascher (1905−1992), a fellow communist activist. They separated amicably in 1937.ACK p. 24.

In 1936, during the Spanish Civil War, Koestler undertook a visit to General Francisco Franco's headquarters in Seville on behalf of the Comintern, pretending to be a Franco sympathiser and using credentials from the London daily News Chronicle as cover. He collected evidence of the direct involvement of Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany on Franco's side, which at that time the Nationalists rebels were still trying to conceal.Koestler, Dialogue with Death, London: Arrow Books, 1961, p. 7 (no ISBN). He had to escape after he was recognised and denounced as a communist by a former German colleague. Back in France, he wrote L'Espagne Ensanglantée, which was later incorporated into his book Spanish Testament. Within Spanish Testament, while in prison, Koestler described his belief in "the Socialist conception of the future of humanity"; in other words, "to given workers chance".

In 1937, Koestler returned to Spain on the side of the Republicans as a war correspondent for the News Chronicle and was in Málaga when it fell to Benito Mussolini's troops, who were fighting on the side of the Nationalists. He took refuge in the house of retired zoologist Sir Peter Chalmers Mitchell, and they were both arrested by Franco's chief propagandist, Luis Bolín, who had sworn that if he ever got his hands on Koestler, he would "shoot him like a dog". My House in Málaga, Sir Peter Chalmers Mitchell, Faber & Faber, London, 1938 / The Clapton Press, London, 2019. From February until June, Koestler was imprisoned in Seville under sentence of death. He was eventually exchanged for a "high value" Nationalist prisoner held by the Republicans, the wife of one of Franco's ace fighter pilots. Koestler was one of the few authors to have been sentenced to death, an experience he wrote about in Dialogue with Death. As he noted in his autobiography, his estranged wife Dorothy Ascher had greatly contributed to saving his life by intensive, months-long lobbying on his behalf in Britain. When he went to Britain after his release, the couple tried to resume their marriage, but Koestler's gratitude to her proved an insufficient foundation for a daily life together. Koestler returned to France, where he agreed to write a sex encyclopaedia to earn money to live on. It was published with great success under the title The Encyclopœdia of Sexual Knowledge, under the pseudonyms of "Drs A. Costler, A. Willy, and Others".IW p. 260.

In July 1938, Koestler finished work on his novel The Gladiators. Later that year, he resigned from the Communist Party and started work on a new novel, which was published in London under the title Darkness at Noon (1941). Also in 1938, he became editor of Die Zukunft (The Future), a German-language weekly published in Paris.IW p. 495. Koestler's breaking with the Communist Party may have been influenced by the similar step taken by his fellow activist Willi Münzenberg. In 1939, Koestler met and formed an attachment to the British sculptor Daphne Hardy. They lived together in Paris, and she translated the manuscript of Darkness at Noon from German into English in early 1940. She smuggled it out of France when they left ahead of the German occupation and arranged for its publication after reaching London that year.

Shortly before the German invasion of France, Koestler joined the French Foreign Legion to get out of the country. He deserted in North Africa and tried to return to England. He heard a false report that the ship Hardy was travelling upon had sunk and that she and his manuscript were lost. He attempted suicide but survived. Arriving in the UK without an entry permit, Koestler was imprisoned pending examination of his case. He was still in prison when Daphne Hardy's English translation of his book Darkness at Noon was published in early 1941. Immediately after Koestler was released, he volunteered for Army service. While awaiting his call-up papers, between January and March 1941, he wrote his memoir Scum of the Earth, the first book he wrote in English. He served in the Pioneer Corps for the next twelve months.Scammell, Michael, 2009. Koestler: The Literary and Political Odyssey of a Twentieth-Century Skeptic . also published in UK as Koestler: The Indispensable Intellectual, London: Faber, 2010.

In March 1942, Koestler was assigned to the Ministry of Information, where he worked as a scriptwriter for propaganda broadcasts and films.ACK p. 28. In his spare time, he wrote Arrival and Departure, the third in his trilogy of novels that included Darkness at Noon. He also wrote several essays, which were subsequently collected and published in The Yogi and the Commissar. One of the essays, titled "On Disbelieving Atrocities" (originally published in The New York Times),January 1944. was about the Nazi atrocities against the Jews. Daphne Hardy, who had been doing war work in Oxford, joined Koestler in London in 1943, but they parted company a few months later. They remained good friends until Koestler's death.Celia Goodman, ed. (CG), , London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1985, , p. 7.

In December 1944, Koestler traveled to Palestine with accreditation from The Times. There he had a clandestine meeting with Menachem Begin, the head of the Irgun paramilitary organisation, who was wanted by the British and had a 500-pound bounty on his head. Koestler tried to persuade him to abandon militant attacks and accept a two-state solution for Palestine but failed. Many years later, Koestler wrote in his memoirs: "When the meeting was over, I realised how naïve I had been to imagine that my arguments would have even the slightest influence."ACK p. 37.

Staying in Palestine until August 1945, Koestler collected material for his next novel, Thieves in the Night. When he returned to England, Mamaine Paget, whom he had started to see before going out to Palestine, was waiting for him.ACK pp. 29–38.CG p .21. In August 1945, the couple moved to the cottage of Bwlch Ocyn, an isolated farmhouse owned by Clough Williams-Ellis, in the Vale of Ffestiniog. Over the next three years, Koestler became a close friend of writer George Orwell. The region had its own intellectual circle, which would have been sympathetic to Koestler: Williams Ellis's wife, Amabel, a niece of Lytton Strachey, was also a former communist; other associates included Rupert Crawshay-Williams, Michael Polanyi, Storm Jameson and, most significantly, Bertrand Russell, who lived close by.

In January 1949, Koestler and Paget moved to a house he had bought in France. There, he wrote a contribution to The God That Failed and finished work on Promise and Fulfilment: Palestine 1917−1949. The latter book received poor reviews in both the U.S. and the UK. In 1949, he also published the non-fiction book Insight and Outlook. This, too, received lukewarm reviews. In July, Koestler began work on Arrow in the Blue, the first volume of his autobiography. He hired a new part-time secretary, Cynthia Jefferies, who replaced Daphne Woodward.Koestler, A. and C., Stranger on the Square, page 53 Cynthia and Koestler eventually married. In the autumn, he started work on The Age of Longing, which he continued to work until mid-1950. Koestler had reached an agreement with his first wife, Dorothy, on an amicable divorce, and their marriage was dissolved on 15 December 1949.CG p. 120. This cleared the way for his marriage to Mamaine Paget,CG pp. 120 & 131. which took place on 15 April 1950 at the British Consulate in Paris.CG p. 131.

In June 1950, Koestler delivered a major anti-communist speech in Berlin under the auspices of the Congress for Cultural Freedom, an organisation funded (though he did not know this) by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of the United States. In the autumn, he went to the United States on a lecture tour, during which he lobbied for permanent resident status in the U.S. At the end of October, on impulse, he bought Hendrick Island, a small island with a house on it on the Delaware River near New Hope, Pennsylvania. He intended to live there at least for part of each year.Cesarani pp. 375–376.

In January 1951, a dramatised version of Darkness at Noon by Sidney Kingsley opened in New York. It won the New York Drama Critics Award. Koestler donated all his royalties from the play to a fund he had set up to help struggling authors, the Fund for Intellectual Freedom (FIF).ACK pp. 103–107. In June a bill was introduced in the United States Senate to grant Koestler permanent residence in the U.S.library.clerk.house.gov/reference-files/House_Calendar_82nd_Congress.pdf, p. 191 Koestler sent tickets for the play to his House sponsor Richard Nixon and his Senate sponsor Owen Brewster, a close confidant of Joseph McCarthy.Scammell, Michael, Koestler: The Indispensable Intellectual, Faber and Faber, London, 2011, p. 383 The bill became law on 23 August 1951 as Private Law 221 Chapter 343 "AN ACT For the relief of Arthur Koestler". Text of the act gpo.gov

In 1951, the last of Koestler's political works, The Age of Longing, was published. In it, he examined the political landscape of post-war Europe and the problems facing the continent. In August 1952, his marriage to Mamaine collapsed. They separated but remained close until her sudden and unexpected death in June 1954.ACK pp. 139–140.CG p. 193. The book , edited by Mamaine's twin sister Celia Goodman, gives insight into their lives together. Koestler decided to make his permanent home in Britain. In May 1953, he bought a three-story Georgian townhouse on Montpelier Square in London and sold his houses in France and the United States.

The first two volumes of his autobiography, Arrow in the Blue, which covers his life up to December 1931 when he joined the German Communist Party, and The Invisible Writing, which covers the years 1932 to 1940, were published in 1952 and 1954, respectively. A collection of essays, The Trail of the Dinosaur and Other Essays on the perils he saw facing Western civilization, was published in 1955. On 13 April 1955, Janine Graetz, with whom Koestler had an on-off relationship over a period of years, gave birth to his daughter Cristina.Cesarani p. 425. Despite repeated attempts by Janine to persuade Koestler to show some interest in her, Koestler had almost no contact with Cristina throughout his life. Early in 1956, he arranged for Cynthia Jeffries to have an abortion when she became pregnant; it was then illegal.Cesarani, p. 443. Koestler's main political activity during 1955 was his campaign for the abolition of capital punishment (which in the UK was by hanging). In July, he started work on Reflections on Hanging.

In early 1960, on his way back from a conference in San Francisco, Koestler interrupted his journey at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where some experimental research was going on with hallucinogens. He tried psilocybin and had a "bad trip". Later, when he arrived at Harvard to see Timothy Leary, he experimented with more drugs but was not enthusiastic about that experience either.Cesarani pp. 467–468. In November 1960, he was elected to a Fellowship of The Royal Society of Literature.

In 1962, along with his agent, A D Peters, and the editor of The Observer, David Astor, Koestler set up a scheme to encourage prison inmates to engage in arts activities and to reward their efforts. Twenty years later he left £10,000 in his will to the Koestler Trust. Nowadays Koestler Arts supports over 7,000 entrants from UK prisons annually and awards prizes in fifty art forms. In late Autumn each year, Koestler Arts runs an exhibition usually at London's Southbank Centre.

Koestler's book The Act of Creation was published in May 1964. In November, he undertook a lecture tour at various universities in California. In 1965, he married Cynthia in New York,Cesarani p. 484. and they moved to California, where he participated in a series of seminars at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University. Koestler spent most of 1966 and early 1967 working on The Ghost in the Machine. In his article "Return Trip to Nirvana", published in 1967 in the Sunday Telegraph, Koestler wrote about the drug culture and his own experiences with hallucinogens. The article also challenged the conclusion about mescaline experience in Aldous Huxley's The Doors of Perception.

In April 1968, Koestler was awarded the Sonning Prize "for his outstanding contribution to European culture". The Ghost in the Machine was published in August of the same year, and in the autumn, he received an honorary doctorate from Queen's University, Kingston, Canada. In the later part of November, the Koestlers flew to Australia for a number of television appearances and press interviews. The first half of the 1970s saw the publication of four more books by Koestler: The Case of the Midwife Toad (1971), The Roots of Coincidence and The Call-Girls (both 1972), and (1974). In the 1972 New Year Honours, he was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE).United Kingdom list:

Koestler and Cynthia killed themselves on the evening of 1 March 1983 at their London home, 8 Montpelier Square, with overdoses of the barbiturate Tuinal taken with alcohol.GM pp. 75–78. Their bodies were discovered on the morning of 3 March, by which time they had been dead for 36 hours.Cesarani p. 547.

The note was dated June 1982. Below it appeared the following:

Further down the page appeared Cynthia's own farewell note:

The funeral was held at the Mortlake Crematorium in South London on 11 March 1983. Controversy arose over why Koestler allowed, consented to, or (according to some critics) compelled his wife's simultaneous suicide. She was only 55 years old and believed to be healthy. In a typewritten addition to her husband's suicide note, Cynthia wrote that she could not live without her husband. Reportedly, few of the Koestlers' friends were surprised by this admission, apparently perceiving that Cynthia lived her life through her husband and that she had no "life of her own".ACK pp. 10–11. Her absolute devotion to Koestler can be seen clearly in her partially completed memoirs.ACK part 2. Despite this, according to a profile of Koestler by Peter Kurth:

With the exception of some minor bequests, Koestler left the residue of his estate, about £1 million (worth about £3.59 million in 2021), to the promotion of research into the paranormal through the founding of a chair in parapsychology at a university in Britain. The estate's trustees had great difficulty finding a university to establish such a chair. Oxford, Cambridge, King's College London and University College London were approached, and all refused. Eventually, the trustees reached an agreement with the University of Edinburgh to set up a chair, the Koestler Parapsychology Unit, in accordance with Koestler's request.Cesarani p. 551.

Some critics believed that Cesarani's claims of Koestler having been a 'serial rapist' were unfounded; in his review of Cesarani's biography in The New York Times, the historian Mark Mazower observed: "Even those who applaud Cesarani for bringing the rape issue forward may wonder whether his approach is not too one-sided to make for a convincing portrait. Koestler was a domineering man. But he attracted women and many remained close friends after they had slept with him. It is implausible to write them all off as masochists, as Cesarani effectively does. Some broke with him; but then so did many other friends and acquaintances." Similarly, John Banville, in the London Review of Books, wrote:

Cesarani and others claim that Koestler had misogynistic tendencies. He engaged in numerous sexual affairs and generally treated the women in his life badly. In his autobiography, The Invisible Writing, Koestler admits to having denounced Nadezhda Smirnova, with whom he was having a relationship, to the Soviet secret police."During my seven years in the Communist Party, the only person whom I denounced or betrayed was Nadeshda ...", The Invisible Writing. p. 107

Darkness at Noon was one of the most influential anti-Soviet books ever written.See, for example, John V. Fleming, The Anti-Communist Manifestos: Four Books that Shaped the Cold War. Norton, 2009. Its influence in Europe on Communists and sympathisers and, indirectly, on the outcomes of elections in Europe, was substantial.Theodore Dalrymple: Drinkers of Infinity http://www.city-journal.org/html/17_2_oh_to_be.html Geoffrey Wheatcroft believes that Koestler's most important books were the five completed before he was 40: his first memoirs and the trilogy of anti-totalitarian novels that included Darkness at Noon.

Koestler criticised neo-Darwinism in a number of his books but was not opposed to the theory of evolution in general terms. Biology professor Harry Gershenowitz described Koestler as a "populariser" of science despite his views not being accepted by the "orthodox academic community". Arthur Koestler's Osculation with Lamarckism and Neo-Lamarckism by Harry Gershenowitz According to an article in the Skeptical Inquirer, Koestler was an "advocate of Lamarckian evolution – and a critic of Darwinian natural selection as well as a believer in psychic phenomena".The Skeptical Inquirer. (1985). Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal. p. 274

In addition to his specific critiques of neo-Darwinism, Koestler was opposed to what he saw as dangerous scientific reductionism more generally, including the behaviourism school of psychology, promoted in particular by B. F. Skinner during the 1930s. Koestler assembled a group of high-profile antireductionist scientists, including C. H. Waddington, W. H. Thorpe, and Ludwig von Bertalanffy, for a meeting at his retreat in Alpbach in 1968. This was one of many attempts which Koestler made to gain acceptance within the mainstream of science, a strategy which brought him into conflict with individuals such as Peter Medawar who saw themselves as defending the integrity of science from outsiders. Although he never gained significant credibility as a scientist, Koestler published a number of works at the border between science and philosophy, such as Insight and Outlook, The Act of Creation, and The Ghost in the Machine.

• 1934 (2013). Die Erlebnisse des Genossen Piepvogel in der Emigration
• 1939. The Gladiators (about the revolt of Spartacus)
• 1940. Darkness at Noon
• 1943. Arrival and Departure
• 1946. Thieves in the Night
• 1951. The Age of Longing, .
• 1972. The Call-Girls: A Tragicomedy with a Prologue and Epilogue. A novel about scholars making a living on the international seminar-conference circuit.

• 1945. Twilight Bar.

• 1937. Spanish Testament.
• 1941. Scum of the Earth.
• 1942. Dialogue with Death.
• 1952. , 2005 reprint,
• 1954. , 1984 reprint,
• 1984. Stranger on the Square co-written with Cynthia Koestler, published posthumously, edited and with an Introduction and Epilogue by Harold Harris, London: Hutchinson, 1984, .

NB The books The Lotus and the Robot, The God that Failed, and Von weissen Nächten und roten Tagen, as well as his numerous essays, all may contain further autobiographical information.

• 1934. Von weissen Nächten und roten Tagen. About Koestler's travels in the USSR. In his The Invisible Writing, Koestler calls the book Red Days and White Nights, or, more usually, Red Days. Of the five foreign language editions − Russian, German, Ukrainian, Georgian, Armenian − planned, only the German version was eventually published in Kharkiv, Ukraine The edition is very rare.
• 1937. L'Espagne ensanglantée.
• 1942 (summer) Le yogi et le commissaire.
• 1945. The Yogi and the Commissar and Other Essays.
• 1948. "What the Modern World is Doing to the Soul of Man". Essay in
• 1949. Promise and Fulfilment: Palestine 1917–1949.
• 1949.
• 1952. The Trail of the Dinosaur. Google Books
• 1955. The Trail of the Dinosaur and Other Essays.
• 1955. The Anatomy of Snobbery in The Anchor review No.1
• 1956. Reflections on Hanging.
• 1959. The Sleepwalkers: A History of Man's Changing Vision of the Universe.   An account of changing scientific paradigms.
• 1960. The Watershed: A Biography of Johannes Kepler. (excerpted from The Sleepwalkers.)
• 1960. The Lotus and the Robot, . Koestler's journey to India and Japan, and his assessment of East and West.
• 1961. Control of the Mind.
• 1961. Hanged by the Neck. Reuses some material from Reflections on Hanging.
• 1963. Suicide of a Nation.
• 1964. The Act of Creation.
• 1967. The Ghost in the Machine. Penguin reprint 1990: .
• 1968. Drinkers of Infinity: Essays 1955–1967.
• 1971. The Case of the Midwife Toad, . An account of Paul Kammerer's research on Lamarckism and what he called "serial coincidences".
• 1972. The Roots of Coincidence, . Sequel to The Case of the Midwife Toad.
• 1973. The Lion and the Ostrich.
• 1974. , .
• 1976. The Thirteenth Tribe: The Khazar Empire and Its Heritage, .
• 1976. Astride the Two Cultures: Arthur Koestler at 70, .
• 1977. Twentieth Century Views: A Collection of Critical Essays, .
• 1978. , . Sequel to The Ghost in the Machine
• 1980. Bricks to Babel. Random House, . This 1980 anthology of passages from many of his books, described as "A selection from 50 years of his writings, chosen and with new commentary by the author", is a comprehensive introduction to Koestler's writing and thought.
• 1981. Kaleidoscope. Essays from Drinkers of Infinity and The Heel of Achilles, plus later pieces and stories.

• The Encyclopœdia of Sexual Knowledge (1934) (In his autobiography The Invisible Writing, Koestler uses the ligature œ in the spelling of the word "Encyclopaedia".)
• Foreign Correspondent (1940) uncredited contributor to Alfred Hitchcock film produced by Walter Wanger
• The God That Failed (1950) (collection of testimonies by ex-Communists)
• Attila, the Poet (1954) (Encounter; 1954.2 (5)). On loan at the UCL library of the School of Slavonic & Eastern European Studies.
• University College London
• Beyond Reductionism: The Alpbach Symposium. New Perspectives in the Life Sciences (co-editor with J. R. Smythies, 1969),
• (1973)
• The Concept of Creativity in Science and Art (1976)
• Life After Death, (co-editor, 1976)
• Humour and Wit. I: Encyclopædia Britannica. 15th ed. vol. 9.(1983)
• humour, Encyclopædia Britannica

• Information Research Department

Key to abbreviations used for frequently quoted sources

• ACK Stranger on the Square (A & C Koestler)
• AIB Arrow in the Blue (A Koestler)
• CG (Celia Goodman, Ed.)
• GM (George Mikes)
• IW The Invisible Writing (A Koestler)

• Freire, Jorge, 2017. Arthur Koestler, nuestro hombre en España. .
• Saunders, Edward, 2017. Arthur Koestler. .
• Michael Scammell, 2009. Koestler: The Literary and Political Odyssey of a Twentieth-Century Skeptic . also published in UK as Koestler: The Indispensable Intellectual, London: Faber, 2010.
• Strelka, Joseph P., 2006. Arthur Koestler: Autor, Kämpfer, Visionär. .
• Laval, Michel, 2005. L'homme sans concessions: Arthur Koestler et son siècle. .
• Buckard, Christian G., 2004. Arthur Koestler: Ein extremes Leben 1905–1983. .
• David Cesarani, 1998. Arthur Koestler: The Homeless Mind. .
• Koestler, Mamaine, 1985. . or .
• Mikes, George, 1983. . .
• Hamilton, Iain, 1982. Koestler: A Biography. .

• MacAdam, Henry Innes, 2021. Outlook & Insight: New Research and Reflections on Arthur Koestler's The Gladiators. .
• Vernyik, Zénó, ed., 2021. Arthur Koestler’s Fiction and the Genre of the Novel: Rubashov and Beyond. .
• Weßel, Matthias, 2021. Arthur Koestler: Die Genese eines Exilschriftstellers. .
• Prinz, Elisabeth, 2011. Im Körper des Souveräns: Politische Krankheitsmetaphern bei Arthur Koestler. .
• Weigel, Robert G., ed., 2009. Arthur Koestler: Ein heller Geist in dunkler Zeit. .
• Klawitter, Uwe, 1997. The Theme of Totalitarianism in English Fiction: Koestler, Orwell, Vonnegut, Kosinski, Burgess, Atwood, Amis. .
• Levene, Mark, 1984. Arthur Koestler.
• Pearson, Sidney A. Jr., 1978. Arthur Koestler. .
• Sperber, Murray A., ed., 1977. Arthur Koestler: A Collection of Critical Essays. .
• Calder, Jenni, 1968. Chronicles of Conscience: A Study of George Orwell and Arthur Koestler. .
• Atkins, John, 1956. Arthur Koestler.

• Koestler CBC Radio 14 December 2011: Interview with biographer Michael Scammell on the Ideas podcast.
• Road Warrior Article in December 2009 issue of the New Yorker. Differs with the Wikipedia entry on many features of Koestler's biography.
• E., Holuber: Dostoevsky's Grandson